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I 

LITTLE WARS 

A Game for Boys 

FROM TWELVE YEARS OF AGE TO ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY 

AND FOR THAT MORE INTELLIGENT SORT OF GIRLS 

WHO LIKE BOYS' GAMES AND BOOKS 



H; G. WELLS 

THE AUTHOR OF *<FLOOR GAMES" AND OTHER 
MINOR AND INFERIOR WORKS 



Illustrated 




BOSTON 
SMALL, MAYNARD AND COMPANY 

PUBLISHFAS 



/]. 



\X^^<x 



Copyright, 191 3 

By Small, Maynard and Company 
( incorporated) 






THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. 




■^y-^~o 




CONTENTS 

Page 
Section 

I Of the Legendary Past ... 9 

II The Beginnings of Modern 

Little Warfare 15 

III The Rules 61 

IV The Battle of Hook's Farm . 99 

V Extensions and Amplifications 

of Little War i37 

VI Ending with a Sort of Chal- 
lenge 15^ 



h> 




ILLUSTRATIONS 



rACIMG PACK 

A country prepared for the war game . Frontispiece 

Countries prepared for the war game 20 

The war game in the open air 26 

The war game in the open air 30 

The war game in the open air 40 

Sketch Plan of the Battle of Hook's Farm ... 99 
Fig. I. — The Battle of Hook's Farm. General view 

of the battlefield and the Red Army 112 

Fig. 2. — The Battle of Hook's Farm. A near view 

of the Blue Army 114 

Fig. 3. — The Battle of Hook's Farm. The Red 

Army is in the foreground 116 

Fig. 4. — The Battle of Hook's Farm. The affair is 

developing rapidly 118 

Fig. 5a. — The Battle of Hook's Farm. Red Cav- 
alry charging home over the Blue guns . . . . 120 

Fig. 5b. — The Battle of Hook's Farm. After the 

cavalry melee 122 

Fig. 6a. — The Battle of Hook's Farm. Three Red 

Cavalry prisoners are being led to the rear . . . 124 

Fig. 6b. — The Battle of Hook's Farm. Position of 
armies at end of Blue's third move 126 






^ 



y 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING PAGE 

Fig. 7. — The Battle of Hook's Farm. Showing the 
frantic rush of Red's left wing across the open to 
join the main body 128 'i 

Fig. 8. — The Battle of Hook's Farm. The Red 

Army suffers heavy losses 130 ** 

Fig. 9. — The Battle of Hook's Farm. Complete 

victory of the Blue Army 132 



Section I 
OF THE LEGENDARY PAST 



OF THE LEGENDARY PAST 

<« Little Wars'' is the game 
of kings — for players in an in- 
ferior social position. It can be 
played by boys of every age 
from twelve to one hundred and 
fifty- — and even later if the 
limbs remain sufficiently supple 
— by girls of the better sort, 
and by a few rare and gifted 
women. This is to be a full 
History of Little Wars from its 
recorded and authenticated be- 
ginning until the present time, 






lo LITTLE WARS 

an account of how to make 
little warfare, and hints of the 
most priceless sort for the re- 
cumbent strategist. . . . 

But first let it be noted in 
passing that there were pre- 
historic " Little Wars.'' This is 
no new thing, no crude novelty; 
but a thing tested by time, an- 
cient and ripe in its essentials 
for all its perennial freshness — 
like spring. There was a Some- 
one who fought Little Wars in 
the days of Queen Anne; a 
garden Napoleon. His game 
was inaccurately observed and 
insufficiently recorded by Lau- 



I 

OF THE LEGENDARY PAST ii 

rence Sterne. It is clear that 
Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim 
were playing Little Wars on a 
scale and with an elaboration 
exceeding even the richness and 
beauty of the contemporary 
game. But the curtain is drawn 
back only to tantalise us. It is 
scarcely conceivable that any- 
where now on earth the Shan- 
dean Rules remain on record. 
Perhaps they were never com- 
mitted to paper. . . . 

And in all ages a certain bar- 
baric warfare has been waged 
with soldiers of tin and lead 
and wood, with the weapons of 





12 



LITTLE WARS 



the wild, with the catapult, the 
elastic circular garter, the pea- 
shooter, the rubber ball, and 
such-like appliances — a mere 
setting up and knocking down 
of men. Tin murder. The 
advance of civilisation has swept 
such rude contests altogether 
from the playroom. We know 
them no more. . . . 




Section II 

THE BEGINNINGS OF 
MODERN LITTLE WARFARE 



THE BEGINNINGS OF 
MODERN LITTLE WARFARE 

The beginning of the game of 
Little War, as we know it, be- 
came possible with the inven- 
tion of the spring breechloader 
gun. This priceless gift to 
boyhood appeared somewhen 
towards the end of the last cen- 
tury, a gun capable of hitting 
a toy soldier nine times out of 
ten at a distance of nine yards. 
It has completely superseded 
all the spiral-spring and other 
makes of gun hitherto used 





LITTLE WARS 

n playroom warfare. These 
spring breechloaders are made 
in various sizes and patterns, 
but the one used in our game 
is that known in England as the 
four-point-seven gun. It fires 
a wooden cylinder about an 
inch long, and has a screw ad- 
justment for elevation and de- 
pression. It is an altogether 
elegant weapon. 

It was with one of these guns 
that the beginning of our war 
game was made. It was at 
Sandgate — in England. 

The present writer had been 
lunching with a friend — let 




MODERN BEGINNINGS 17 

me veil his identity under the 
initials J. K. J. — in a room 
littered with the irrepressible 
debris of a small boy's pleasures. 
On a table near our own stood 
four or five soldiers and one of 
these guns. Mr J. K. J., his 
more urgent needs satisfied and 
the coffee imminent, drew a 
chair to this little table, sat 
down, examined the gun dis- 
creetly, loaded it warily, aimed, 
and hit his man. Thereupon 
he boasted of the deed, and is- 
sued challenges that were ac- 
cepted with avidity. ... 

He fired that day a shot that 





1 8 LITTLE WARS 

Still echoes round the world. 
An affair — let us parallel the 
Cannonade of Valmy and call it 

the Cannonade of Sandgate 

occurred, a shooting between 
opposed ranks of soldiers, a 
shooting not very different in 
spirit — but how different in re- 
sults ! — from the prehistoric 
warfare of catapult and garter. 
''But suppose," said his an- 
tagonists; "suppose somehow 
one could move the men!'' and 
therewith opened a new world 
of belligerence. 

The matter went no further 
with Mr J. K. J. The seed lay 



MODERN BEGINNINGS 19 

for a time gathering strength, 
and then began to germinate 
with another friend, Mr W. 
To Mr W. was broached the 
idea: " I believe that if one set 
up a few obstacles on the floor, 
volumes of the British Encyclo- 
pedia and so forth, to make 
a Country, and moved these 
soldiers and guns about, one 
could have rather a good game, 
a kind of kriegspiel^ . . . 

Primitive attempts to realise 
the dream were interrupted by 
a great rustle and chattering of 
lady visitors. They regarded 
the objects upon the floor with 






20 LITTLE WARS 

the empty disdain of their sex 
for all imaginative things. 

But the writer had in those 
days a very dear friend, a man 
too ill for long excursions or 
vigorous sports he has been 
dead now these six years], of i 
a very sweet companionable 
disposition, a hearty jester and 
full of the spirit of play. To 
him the idea was broached more 
fruitfully. We got two forces 
of toy soldiers, set out a lump- I 
ish Encyclopaedic land upon the 
carpet, and began to play. We 
arranged to move in alternate 
moves : first one moved all his 




5s. 






o 



MODERN BEGINNINGS 21 



force and then the other; an 
infantry-man could move one 
foot at each move, a cavalry- 
man two, a gun two, and it 
might fire six shots; and if a 
man was moved up to touch 
another man, then we tossed 
up and decided which man was 
dead. So we made a game, 
which was not a good game, 
but which was very amusing 
once or twice. The men were 
packed under the lee of fat 
volumes, while the guns, ani- 
mated by a spirit of their own, 
banged away at any exposed 
head, or prowled about in search 





22 



LITTLE WARS 




of a shot. Occasionally men 
came into contact, with remark- 
able results. Rash is the man 
who trusts his life to the spin 
of a coin. One impossible 
paladin slew in succession nine 
men and turned defeat to vic- 
tory^ to the extreme exaspera- 
tion of the strategist who had 
led those victims to their doom. 
This inordinate factor of chance 
eliminated play; the individual 
freedom of guns turned battles 
into scandals of crouching con- 
cealment; there was too much 
cover afforded by the books 
and vast intervals of waitin 



MODERN BEGINNINGS 2^ 

while the players took aim. 
And yet there was something 
about it. . . . It was a game 
crying aloud for improvement. 
Improvement came almost 
simultaneously in several di- 
rections. First there was the 
development of the Country. 
The soldiers did not stand well 
on an ordinary carpet, the Ency- 
clopasdia made clumsy cliff-Hke 
^^ cover," and more particularly 
the room in which the game had 
Its beginnings was subject to the 
invasion of callers, alien souls, 
trampling skirt-swishers, chat- 
terers, creatures unfavourably 




24 LITTLE WARS 

impressed by the spectacle of 
two middle-aged men playing 
with ^'toy soldiers" on the 
floor, and very heated and ex- 
cited about it. Overhead was 
the day nursery^ with a wide ex- 
tent of smooth cork carpet (the 
natural terrain of toy soldiers), 
a large box of bricks — such 
as I have described in Floor 
Games — and certain large inch- 
thick boards. 

It was an easy task for the 
head of the household to evict 
his offspring, annex these ad- 
vantages, and set about plan- 
ning a more realistic country. 




MODERN BEGINNINGS 25 

(I forget what became of the 
children.) The thick boards 
were piled up one upon another 
to form hills; holes were bored 
in them, into which twigs of 
various shrubs were stuck to 
represent trees; houses and 
sheds (solid and compact piles 
of from three to six or seven 
inches high, and broad in pro- 
portion) and walls were made 
with the bricks; ponds and 
swamps and rivers, with fords 
and so forth indicated, were 
chalked out on the floor, garden 
stones were brought in to rep- 
resent great rocks, and the 




26 LITTLE WARS 

^^ Country" at least of our per- 
fected war game was in exist- 
ence. We discovered it was 
easy to cut out and bend and 
gum together paper and card- 
board walls, into which our toy 
bricks could be packed, and on 
which we could paint doors 
and windows, creepers and rain- 
water pipes, and so forth, to 
represent houses, castles, and 
churches in a more realistic 
manner, and, growing skilful, 
we made various bridges and so 
forth of card. Every boy who 
has ever put together model 
villages knows how to do these 




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■ S-*: 



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$^ 



"2 S 

5 S 



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S. S-2 






'5 " 



MODERN BEGINNINGS 27 

things, and the attentive reader 
will find them edifyingly rep- 
resented in our photographic 
illustrations. 

There has been little de- 
velopment since that time in 
the Country. Our illustrations 
show the methods of arrange- 
ment, and the reader will see 
how easily and readily the ut- 
most variety of battlefields can 
be made. (It is merely to be 
remarked that a too crowded 
Country makes the guns in- 
effective and leads to a mere 
tree to tree and house to house 
scramble, and that large open 




28 LITTLE WARS I 

spaces along the middle, or 
rivers without frequent fords 
and bridges, lead to ineffec- \ 
tive cannonades, because of the 
danger ot any advance. On 
the whole, too much cover is 
better than too little.) We de- 
cided that one player should 
plan and lay out the Country, 
and the other player choose 
from which side he would come. 
And to-day we play over such 
landscapes in a cork-carpeted 
schoolroom, from which the 
proper occupants are no longer 
evicted but remain to take an 
increasingly responsible and less 



MODERN BEGINNINGS 29 

and less audible and distressing 
share in the operations. 

We found it necessary to 
make certain general rules. 
Houses and sheds must be 
made of solid lumps of bricks, 
and not hollow so that soldiers 
can be put inside them, be- 
cause otherwise muddled situa- 
tions arise. And it was clearly 
necessary to provide for the re- 
placement of disturbed objects 
by chalking out the outlines 
of boards and houses upon the 
floor or boards upon which 
they stood. 

And while we thus perfected 





30 LITTLE WARS 

the Country, we were also elimi- 
nating all sorts of tediums, | 
disputable possibilities, and 
deadlocks from the game. We 
decided that every man should , 
be as brave and skilfbl as every i 
other man, and that when two j 
men of opposite sides came into ^ 
contact they would inevitably 
kill each other. This restored 
strategy to its predominance 
over chance. 

We then began to humanise 
that wild and fearful fowl, the 
gun. We decided that a gun 
could not be fired if there 
were not six — afterwards we 





Sn 



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1?. 



I 



MODERN BEGINNINGS 31 

reduced the number to four — 
men within six inches of it. 
And we ruled that a gun could 
not both fire and move in the 
same general move : it could 
either be fired or moved (or 
left alone). If there were less 
than six men within six inches 
of a gun, then we tried letting 
it fire as many shots as there 
were men, and we permitted a 
single man to move a gun, and 
move with it as far as he could 
go by the rules — a foot, that 
is, if he was an infantry-man, 
and two feet if he was a cavalry- 
man. We abolished altogether 




32 LITTLE WARS 

that magical freedom of an un- 
assisted gun to move two feet. 
And on such rules as these 
we fought a number of battles. 
They were interesting, but 
not entirely satisfactory. We 
took no prisoners — a feature 
at once barbaric and unconvinc- 
ing. The battles lingered on 
a long time, because we shot 
with extreme care and deliber- 
ation, and they were hard to 
bring to a decisive finish. The 
guns were altogether too pre- 
dominant. They prevented at- 
tacks getting home, and they 
made it possible for a timid 




MODERN BEGINNINGS 33 

player to put all his soldiers out 
of sight behind hills and houses, 
and bang away if his opponent 
showed as much as the tip of 
a bayonet. Monsieur Bloch 
seemed vindicated, and Little 
War had become impossible. 
And there was something a 
little absurd, too, in the spec- 
tacle of a solitary drummer-boy, 
for example, marching off with 
a gun. 

But as there was neverthe- 
less much that seemed to us ex- 
tremely pretty and picturesque 
about the game, we set to 
work — and here a certain Mr 





34 LITTLE WARS 

M. with his brother, Captain 
M., hot from the Great War in 
South Africa, came in most help- 
fully — to quicken it. Mani- 
festly the guns had to be 
reduced to manageable terms. 
We cut down the number of 
shots per move to four, and 
we required that four men 
should be within six inches of 
a gun for it to be in action 
at all. Without four men it 
could neither fire nor move — 
it was out of action 5 and if it 
moved, the four men had to 
go with it. Moreover, to put 
an end to that little resistant 



MODERN BEGINNINGS 35 

body of men behind a house, 
we required that after a gun 
had been fired it should re- 
main, without alteration of the 
elevation, pointing in the di- 
rection of its last shot, and 
have two men placed one on 
either side of the end of its 
trail. This secured a certain 
exposure on the part of con- 
cealed and sheltered gunners. 
It was no longer possible to 
go on shooting out of a perfect 
security for ever. All this fa- 
voured the attack and led to a 
livelier game. 

Our next step was to abol- 




36 LITTLE WARS 

ish the tedium due to the elabo- 
rate aiming of the guns, by 
fixing a time limit for every 
move. We made this an out- 
side limit at first, ten minutes, 
but afterwards we discovered 
that it made the game much 
more warlike to cut the time 
down to a length that would 
barely permit a slow-moving 
player to fire all his guns and 
move all his men. This led to 
small bodies of men lagging 
and '' getting left,'' to careless 
exposures, to rapid, less accu- 
rate shooting, and just that 
eventfulness one would expect 




t MODERN BEGINNINGS 37 

in the hurry and passion of 
real fighting. It also made the 
game brisker. We have since 
also made a limit, sometimes 
of four minutes, sometimes of 
five minutes, to the interval 
for adjustment and deliberation 
after one move is finished and 
before the next move begins. 
This further removes the game 
from the chess category, and 
approximates it to the like- 
ness of active service. Most 
of a general's decisions, once 
a fight has begun, must be 
made in such brief intervals 
of time. (But we leave un- 



^IuIuIilJII3 




38 LITTLE WARS 

limited time at the outset for 
the planning.) 

As to our time-keeping, we 
catch a visitor with a stop-watch 
if we can, and if we cannot, we 
use a fair-sized clock with a 
second-hand: the player not 
moving says " Go,'' and warns 
at the last two minutes, last 
minute, and last thirty seconds. 
But I think it would not be 
difficult to procure a cheap 
clock — because, of course, no 
one wants a very accurate 
agreement with Greenwich as 
to the length of a second — 
that would have minutes instead 




MODERN BEGINNINGS 39 

of hours and seconds instead of 
minutes, and that would ping 
at the end of every minute and 
discharge an alarm note at the 
end of the move. That would 
abolish the rather boring strain 
of time-keeping. One could 
just watch the fighting. 

Moreover, in our desire to 
bring the game to a climax, we 
decided that instead of a fight 
to a finish we would fight to 
some determined point, and we 
found very good sport in sup- 
posing that the arrival of three 
men of one force upon the 
back line of the opponent's 





\\tM 



40 LITTLE WARS 

side of the country was of such 
strategic importance as to de- 
termine the battle. But this 
form of battle we have since 
largely abandoned in favour of 
the old fight to a finish again. 
We found it led to one type 
of battle only, a massed rush 
at the antagonist's line, and 
that our arrangements of time- 
limits and capture and so forth 
had eliminated most of the con- 
cluding drag upon the game. 

Our game was now very 
much in its present form. We 
considered at various times the 
possibility of introducing some 





.5s. 









MODERN BEGINNINGS 41 

complication due to the bring- 
ing up of ammunition or sup- 
plies generally, and we decided 
that it would add little to the 
interest or reality of the game. 
Our battles are little brisk fights 
in which one may suppose that 
all the ammunition and food 
needed are carried by the men 
themselves. 

But our latest development 
has been in the direction of 
killing hand to hand or taking 
prisoners. We found it neces- 
sary to distinguish between an 
isolated force and a force that 
was merely a projecting part 




42 LITTLE WARS 

of a larger force. We made a 
definition of isolation. After 
a considerable amount of trials 
we decided that a man or a de- 
tachment shall be considered to 
be isolated when there is less 
than half its number of its 
own side within a move of 
it. Now, in actual civilised 
warfare small detached bodies 
do not sell their lives dearly j 
a considerably larger force is 
able to make them prisoners 
without difficulty. Accordingly 
we decided that if a blue force, 
for example^ has one or more 
men isolated, and a red force 




MODERN BEGINNINGS 43 

of at least double the strength 
of this isolated detachment 
moves up to contact with it, 
the blue men will be con- 
sidered to be prisoners. 

That seemed fair; but so 
desperate is the courage and 
devotion of lead soldiers, that 
it came to this, that any small 
force that got or seemed likely 
to get isolated and caught by 
a superior force instead of wait- 
ing to be taken prisoners, 
dashed at its possible captors 
and slew them man for man. It 
was manifestly unreasonable to 
permit this. And in consider- 



•""^^ttHiiiMi '^''■■^=^^^^ _^ 





44 LITTLE WARS 1 

ing how best to prevent such 
inhuman heroisms, we were re- 
minded of another frequent in- 
cident in our battles that also 
erred towards the incredible 
and vitiated our strategy. That 
was the charging of one or 
two isolated horsemen at a gun 
in order to disable it. Let me 
illustrate this by an incident. 
A force consisting of ten in- 
fantry and five cavalry with a 
gun are retreating across an ex- 
posed space, and a gun with 
thirty men, cavalry and in- 
fantry, in support comes out 
upon a crest into a position to 




MODERN BEGINNINGS 45 

fire within two feet of the re- 
treating cavalry. The attack- 
ing player puts eight men within 
six inches of his gun and pushes 
the rest of his men a little for- 
ward to the right or left in pur- 
suit of his enemy. In the real 
thing, the retreating horsemen 
would go off to cover with the 
gun, while the infantry would 
open out and retreat, firing. 
But see what happened in our 
imperfect form of Little War! 
The move of the retreating 
player began. Instead of re- 
treating his whole force, he 
charged home with his mounted 




46 LITTLE WARS 

desperadoes, killed five of the 
eight men about the gun, and 
so by the rule silenced it, en- 
abhng the rest of his little body 
to get clean away to cover at 
the leisurely pace of one foot 
a move. This was not like any 
sort of warfare. In real life 
cavalry cannot pick out and 
kill its equivalent in cavalry 
while that equivalent is closely 
supported by other cavalry or 
infantry 5 a handful of troopers 
cannot gallop past well and 
abundantly manned guns in ac- 
tion, cut down the gunners 
and interrupt the fire. And yet 



MODERN BEGINNINGS 47 

for a time we found it a little 
difficult to frame simple rules to 
meet these two bad cases and 
prevent such scandalous possi- 
bilities. We did at last con- 
trive to do so; we invented 
what we call the melee^ and our 
revised rules in the event of a 
melee will be found set out 
upon a later page. They do 
really permit something like an 
actual result to hand-to-hand 
encounters. They abolish Ho- 
ratius Codes. 

We also found difficulties 
about the capturing of guns. 
At first we had merely provided 



48 



LITTLE WARS 



that a gun was captured when 
it was out of action and four 
men of the opposite force were 
within six inches of it, but we 
found a number of cases for 
which this rule was too vague. 
A gun, for example, would be 
disabled and left with only 
three men within six inches j 
the enemy would then come 
up eight or ten strong within 
six inches on the other side, 
but not really reaching the 
gun. At the next move the 
original possessor of the gun 
would bring up half a dozen 
men within six inches. To 




MODERN BEGINNINGS 49 

whom did the gun belong? By 
the original wording of our 
rule, it might be supposed to 
belong to the attack which had 
never really touched the gun 
yet, and they could claim to 
turn it upon its original side. 
We had to meet a number of 
such cases. We met them by 
requiring the capturing force — 
or, to be precise, four men of 
it — actually to pass the axle 
of the gun before it could be 
taken. 

All sorts of odd little diffi- 
culties arose too, connected 
with the use of the guns as 





50 LITTLE WARS 

a shelter from fire, and very 
exact rules had to be made to 
avoid tilting the nose and rais- 
ing the breech of a gun in 
order to use it as cover. . . . 

We still found it difficult to 
introduce any imitation into 
our game of either retreat or 
the surrender of men not actu- 
ally taken prisoners in a melee. 
Both things were possible by 
the rules, but nobody did them 
because there was no induce- 
ment to do them. Games were 
apt to end obstinately with the 
death or capture of the last man. 
An inducement was needed. 



MODERN BEGINNINGS 51 

This we contrived by playing 
not for the game but for points, 
scoring the result of each game 
and counting the points towards 
the decision of a campaign. 
Our campaign was to our single 
game what a rubber is to a 
game of whist. We made the 
end of a war aoo, 300, or 400 
or more points up, according 
to the number of games we 
wanted to play, and we scored 
a hundred for each battle won, 
and in addition i for each in- 
fantry-man, iV^ for each cavalry- 
man, 10 for each gun, '/4 for 
each man held prisoner by the 



52 LITTLE WARS 

enemy, and Vi for each prisoner 
held at the end of the game, 
subtracting what the antago- 
nist scored by the same scale. 
Thus, when he felt the battle 
was hopelessly lost, he had a i 
direct inducement to retreat any 
guns he could still save and sur- 
render any men who were under 
the fire of the victors' guns and 
likely to be slaughtered, in order 
to minimise the score against i 
him. And an interest was given I 
to a skilful retreat, in which the 
loser not only saved points for 
himself but inflicted losses upon 
the pursuing enemy. 



MODERN BEGINNINGS 53 

At first we played the game 
from the outset, with each 
player's force within sight of 
his antagonist; then we found 
it possible to hang a double 
curtain of casement cloth from 
a string stretched across the 
middle of the field, and we 
drew this back only after both 
sides had set out their men. 
Without these curtains we 
found the first player was at 
a heavy disadvantage, because 
he displayed all his dispositions 
before his opponent set down 
his men. 

And at last our rules have 





54 



LITTLE WARS 



reached stability, and we regard 
them now with the virtuous 
pride of men who have per- 
sisted in a great undertaking 
and arrived at precision after 
much tribulation. There is 
not a piece of constructive 
legislation in the world, not a 
solitary attempt to meet a com- 
plicated problem, that we do 
not now regard the more chari- 
tably for our efforts to get a 
right result from this appar- 
ently easy and puerile business 
of fighting with tin soldiers on 
the floor. 

And so our laws all made. 




MODERN BEGINNINGS 55 

battles have been fought, the 
mere beginnings, we feel, of 
vast campaigns. The game has 
become in a dozen aspects ex- 
traordinarily like a small real 
battle. The plans are made, 
the Country hastily surveyed, 
and then the curtains are closed, 
and the antagonists make their 
opening dispositions. Then 
the curtains are drawn back 
and the hostile forces come 
within sight of each other; the 
little companies and squadrons 
and batteries appear hurrying 
to their positions, the infantry 
deploying into long open lines, 




56- 



LITTLE WARS 



the cavalry sheltering in re- 
serve, or galloping with the 
guns to favourable advance 
positions. 

In two or three moves the 
guns are flickering into action, 
a cavalry melee may be in prog- 
ress, the plans of the attack 
are more or less apparent, here 
are men pouring out from the 
shelter of a wood to secure 
some point of vantage, and 
here are troops massing among 
farm buildings for a vigorous 
attack. The combat grows hot 
round some vital point. Move 
follows move in swift succession. 




MODERN BEGINNINGS 57 

One realises with a sickening 
sense of error that one is outnum- 
bered and hard pressed here and 
uselessly cut off there, that one's 
guns are ill-placed, that one's 
wings are spread too widely, 
and that help can come only 
over some deadly zone of fire. 

So the fight wears on. Guns 
are lost or won, hills or villages 
stormed or held; suddenly it 
grows clear that the scales are 
tilting beyond recovery, and 
the loser has nothing left but 
to contrive how he may get to 
the back line and safety with the 
vestiges of his command. . . . 




58 



LITTLE WARS 



But let me, before I go on 
to tell of actual battles and 
campaigns, give here a sum- 
mary of our essential rules. 





Section III 
THE RULES 



liMiBilWiSSarJS3rT^..&>aa5-.£is»r<-»=.. — ^>— — 



THE RULES 

Here, then, are the rules of 
the perfect battle-game as we 
play it in an ordinary room. 

The Country 

(i) The Country must be 
arranged by one player, who, 
failing any other agreement, 
shall be selected by the toss of 
a coin. 

(2) The other player shall 
then choose which side of the 
field he will fight from. 








62 LITTLE WARS 

(3) The Country must be 
disturbed as little as possible in 
each move. Nothing in the 
Country shall be moved or set 
aside deliberately to facilitate 
the firing of guns. A player 
must not lie across the Country 
so as to crush or disturb the 
Country if his opponent ob- 
jects. Whatever is moved by 
accident shall be replaced after 
the end of the move. 

The Move 

(i) After the Country is 
made and the sides chosen, 
then (and not until then) the 



THE RULES 



63 



players shall toss for the first 
move. 

(2) If there is no curtain, 
the player winning the toss, 
hereafter called the First Player, 
shall next arrange his men 
along his back line, as he 
chooses. Any men he may 
place behind or in front of his 
back line shall count in the 
subsequent move as if they 
touched the back line at its 
nearest point. The Second 
Player shall then do the same. 
But if a curtain is available 
both first and second player 
may put down their men at the 




64 LITTLE WARS 

same time. Both players may 
take unlimited time for the 
putting down of their men; if 
there is a curtain it is drawn 
back when they are ready, and 
the game then begins. 

(3) The subsequent moves 
after the putting down are 
timed. The length of time 
given for each move is de- 
termined by the size of 
the forces engaged. About a 
minute should be allowed for 
moving 30 men and a minute 
for each gun. Thus for a force 
of 1 10 men and 3 guns, moved 
by one player, seven minutes 



THE RULES 



65 



is an ample allowance. As the 
battle progresses and the men 
are killed off, the allowance is 
reduced as the players may 
agree. The player about to 
move stands at attention a 
yard behind his back line un- 
til the timekeeper says ^'Go." 
He then proceeds to make his 
move until time is up. He 
must instantly stop at the cry 
of ^^ Time." Warning should 
be given by the timekeeper two 
minutes, one minute^ and thirty 
seconds before time is up. 
There will be an interval be- 
fore the next move^ during 





66 LITTLE WARS 

which any disturbance of the 
Country can be rearranged and 
men accidentally overturned re- 
placed in a proper attitude. 
This interval must not exceed 
five or four minutes, as may be 
agreed upon. 

(4) Guns must not be fired 
before the second move of the 
first player — not counting the 
^^ putting down" as a move. 
Thus the first player puts 
down, then the second player, 
the first player moves, then the 
second player, and the two 
forces are then supposed to 
come into efl^ective range of each 



THE RULES 



67 



other and the first player may 
open fire if he wishes to do so. 

(5) In making his move a 
player must move or fire his 
guns if he wants to do so, be- 
fore moving his men. To this 
rule of ''Guns First" there 
is to be no exception. 

(6) Every soldier may be 
moved and every gun moved 
or fired at each move, subject 
to the following rules: 

Mobility of the Various 
Arms 

(Each player must be pro- 
vided with two pieces of string. 




68 LITTLE WARS 

one two feet in length and the 
other six inches.) 

(i) An infantry-man may be 
moved a foot or any less dis- 
tance at each move. 

(2) A cavalry-man may be 
moved two feet or any less dis- 
tance at each move. 

(3) ^ §^^ ^^ ^^ action if 
there are at least four men of 
its own side within six inches 
of it. If there are not at least 
four men within that distance, 
it can neither be moved nor 
fired. 

(4) If a gun is in action it 
can either be moved or fired 




THE RULES 69 

at each move, but not both. 
If it is fired it may fire as many 
as four shots in each move. It 
may be swung round on its 
axis (the middle point of its 
wheel axle) to take aim, pro- 
vided the Country about it per- 
mitsj it may be elevated or 
depressed, and the soldiers 
about it may, at the discretion 
of the firer, be made to lie 
down in their places to facili- 
tate its handling. (Moreover, 
soldiers who have got in front 
of the fire of their own guns 
may lie down while the guns 
fire over them. At the end of 




70 LITTLE WARS 

the move the gun must be left 
without altering its elevation 
and pointing in the direction of 
the last shot. And after firing, 
two men must be placed ex- 
actly at the end of the trail of 
the gun, one on either side in a 
line directly behind the wheels. 
So much for firing. If the 
gun is moved and not fired, 
then at least four men who are 
with the gun must move up 
with it to its new position, and 
be placed within six inches of 
it in its new position. The 
gun itself must be placed trail 
forward and the muzzle point- 



THE RULES 71 

ing back in the direction from 
which it came, and so it must 
remain until it is swung round 
on its axis to fire. Obviously 
the distance which a gun can 
move will be determined by 
the men it is with; if there 
are at least four cavalry-men 
with it, they can take the 
gun two feet, but if there are 
fewer cavalry-men than four 
and the rest infantry, or no 
cavalry and all infantry, the 
gun will be movable only one 
foot. 

(5) Every man must be 
placed fairly clear of hills, build- 




72 LITTLE WARS 

ings, trees, guns, etc. He 
must not be jammed into inter- 
stices, and either player may 
insist upon a clear distance be- 
tween any man and any gun 
or other object of at least one- 
sixteenth of an inch. Nor 
must men be packed in con- 
tact with men. A space of 
one-sixteenth of an inch should 
be kept between them. 

(6) When men are knocked 
over by a shot they are dead, 
and as many men are dead as 
a shot knocks over or causes 
to fall or to lean so that they 
would fall if unsupported. But 




"^idl 



THE RULES 73 

if a shot strikes a man but 
does not knock him over, he 
is dead, provided the shot has 
not already killed a man. But 
a shot cannot kill more than 
one man without knocking him 
over, and if it touches several 
without oversetting them, only 
the first touched is dead and 
the others are not incapaci- 
tated. A shot that rebounds 
from or glances off any object 
and touches a man, kills him ; it 
kills him even if it simply rolls 
to his feet, subject to what 
has been said in the previous 
sentence. 




^' 





M 



74 LITTLE WARS 

Hand-to-Hand Fighting 
AND Capturing 

(i) A man or a body of 
men which has less than half 
its own number of men on 
its own side within a move 
of it^ is said to be r'sc- 
lated. But if there is at 
least half its number of men 
of its own side within a move 
of it, it is not isolated ^ it is 
supported. 

(2) Men may be moved up 
into virtual contact (oner-eighth 
of an inch or closer) with men 
of the opposite side. They 



THE RULES 



75 



must then be left until the 
end of the move. 

(3) At the end of the move, 
if there are men of the side 
that has just moved in contact 
with any men of the other 
side, they constitute a melee. 
All the men in contact, and 
any other men within six 
inches of the men in contact, 
measuring from any point 
of their persons, weapons, or 
horses, are supposed to take 
part in the melee. At the 
end of the move the two 
players examine the melee and 
dispose of the men con- 





76 LITTLE WARS 

cerned according to the follow- 
ing rules: — 

Either the numbers taking 
part in the melee on each side 
are equal or unequal. 

(a) If they are equal all the 
men on both sides are killed. 

(b) If they are unequal then 
the inferior force is either iso- 
lated or [measuring from the 
points of contact^ not isolated. 

{I?\) If it is isolated (see i 
above) then as many men be- 
come prisoners as the inferior 
force is less in numbers than 
the superior force, and the rest 
kill each a man and are killed. 



THE RULES 



11 



Thus nine against eleven have 
two taken prisoners, and each 
side seven men dead. Four 
of the eleven remain with two 
prisoners. One may put this 
in another way by saying that 
the two forces kill each other 
off, man for man, until one 
force is double the other, which 
is then taken prisoner. Seven 
men kill seven men, and then 
four are left with two. 

{h^) But if the inferior force 
is not isolated (see i above), 
then each man of the inferior 
force kills a man of the supe- 
rior force and is himself killed. 




78 LITTLE WARS 

And the player who has just 
completed the move, the one 
who has charged, decides, when 
there is any choice, which men 
in the melee^ both of his own 
and of his antagonist, shall 
die and which shall be prison- 
ers or captors. 

All these arrangements are 
made after the move is over, 
in the interval between the 
moves, and the time taken 
for the adjustment does not 
count as part of the usual in- 
terval for consideration. It is 
extra time. 

The player next moving 




THE RULES 79 

may, if he has taken prisoners, 
move these prisoners. Prison- 
ers may be sent under escort 
to the rear or wherever the 
capturer directs, and one man 
within six inches of any number 
of prisoners up to seven can es- 
cort these prisoners and go with 
them. Prisoners are liberated 
by the death of any escort there 
may be within six inches of 
them, but they may not be 
moved by the player of their 
own side until the move follow- 
ing that in which the escort 
is killed. Directly prisoners are 
taken they are supposed to be 




8o 



LITTLE WARS 




disarmed, and if they are liber- 
ated they cannot fight until they 
are rearmed. In order to be 
rearmed they must return to 
the back line of their own side. 
An escort having conducted 
prisoners to the back line, and 
so beyond the reach of libera- 
tion, may then return into the 
fighting line. 

Prisoners once made cannot 
fight until they have returned 
to their back line. It follows, 
therefore, that if after the ad- 
judication of a melee a player 
moves up more men into touch 
with the survivors of this first 



THE RULES 8i 

m^Iee^ and so constitutes a sec- 
ond meke^ any prisoners made 
in the first melee will not count 
as combatants in the second 
melee. Thus if A moves up 
nineteen men into a melee with 
thirteen of B's, — B having only 
five in support, — A makes six 
prisoners, kills seven men, and 
has seven of his own killed. 
If, now, B can move up four- 
teen men into melee with A's 
victorious survivors, which he 
may be able to do by bringing 
the five into contact, and get- 
ting nine others within six inches 
of them, no count is made of the 




82 LITTLE WARS 

six of B's men who are prison- 
ers in the hands of A. They 
are disarmed. B, therefore, has 
fourteen men in the second 
melee and A twelve, B makes 
two prisoners, kills ten of A's 
men, and has ten of his own 
killed. But now the six prison- 
ers originally made by A are 
left without an escort, and are 
therefore recaptured by B. But 
they must go to B's back line 
and return before they can 
fight again. So, as the out- 
come of these two melees^ there 
are six of B's men going as 
released prisoners to his back 



THE RULES 



83 



line whence they may return 
into the battle, two of A's men 
prisoners in the hands of B, 
one of B's staying with them 
as escort, and three of B's men 
still actively free for action. 
A, at a cost of nineteen men, 
has disposed of seventeen of 
B's men for good, and of six or 
seven, according to whether B 
keeps his prisoners in his fight- 
ing line or not, temporarily. 

(4) Any isolated body may 
hoist the white flag and sur- 
render at any time. 

(5) A gun is captured when 
there is no man whatever of its 




84 



LITTLE WARS 




original side within six inches 
of it, and when at least four 
men of the antagonist side have 
moved up to it and have passed 
its wheel axis going in the di- 
rection of their attack. This 
latter point is important. An 
antagonist's gun may be out 
of action, and you may have 
a score of men coming up to 
it and within six inches of it, 
but it is not yet captured ; and 
you may have brought up a 
dozen men all round the hostile 
gun, but if there is still one 
enemy just out of their reach 
and within six inches of the 



THE RULES 85 

end of the trail of the gun, 
that gun is not captured: it is 
still in dispute and out of ac- 
tion, and you may not fire it 
or move it at the next move. 
But once a gun is fully cap- 
tured, it follows all the rules 
of your own guns. 

Varieties of the Battle- 
Game 

You may play various types 
of game. 

(i) One is the Fight to the 
Finish. You move in from 
any points you like on the back 
line and try to kill, capture, 



86 



LITTLE WARS 



or drive over his back line the 
whole of the enemy's force. 
You play the game for points; 
you score loo for the victory, 
and lo for every gun you hold 
or are in a position to take, 
114 for every cavalry-man, i 
for every infantry-man still alive 
and uncaptured, y^ for every 
man of yours prisoner in the 
hands of the enemy, and y^. for 
every prisoner you have taken. 
If the battle is still undecided 
when both forces are reduced 
below fifteen men, the battle 
is drawn and the 100 points 
for victory are divided. 



.^^^i^^^-r ^- 




\^^^^^McAn^ 



THE RULES 87 

Note, — This game can be 
fought with any sized force, 
but if it is fought with less than 
50 a side, the minimum must 
be ID a side. 

(2) The Blow at the Rear 
game is decided when at least 
three men of one force reach 
any point in the back line of 
their antagonist. He is then 
supposed to have suffered a 
strategic defeat, and he must 
retreat his entire force over the 
back line in six moves, /. e, six 
of his moves. Anything left 
on the field after six moves 
capitulates to the victor. Points 




A DRAW/ 




88 LITTLE WARS 

count as in the preceding game, 
but this lasts a shorter time and 
is better adapted to a cramped 
country with a short back line. 
With a long rear line the game 
is simply a rush at some weak 
point in the first player's line 
by the entire cavalry brigade 
of the second player. Instead 
of making the whole back line 
available for the Blow at the 
Rear, the middle or either half 
may be taken. 

(3) In the Defensive Game, 
a force, the defenders, two- 
thirds as strong as its antago- 
nist, tries to prevent the latter 



THE RULES 89 

arriving, while still a quarter 
of its original strength upon 
the defender's back line. The 
Country must be made by one 
or both of the players before 
it is determined which shall be 
defender. The players then 
toss for choice of sides, and 
the winner of the toss becomes 
the defender. He puts out his 
force over the field on his own 
side, anywhere up to the dis- 
tance of one move off the 
middle line — that is to say, he 
must not put any man within 
one move of the middle line^ 
but he may do so anywhere on 




90 LITTLE WARS 

his own side of that limit, — 
and then the loser of the toss 
becomes first player, and sets 
out his men a move from his 
back line. The defender may 
open fire forthwith j he need 
not wait until after the second 
move of the first player, as the 
second player has to do. 

Composition of Forces 

Except in the above cases, 
or when otherwise agreed upon, 
the forces engaged shall be 
equal in number and similar in 
composition. The methods of 
handicapping are obvious. A 



THE RULES 91 

slight inequality (chances of 
war) may be arranged between 
equal players by leaving out 
12 men on each side and toss- 
ing with a pair of dice to see 
how many each player shall 
take of these. The best ar- 
rangement and proportion of 
the forces is in small bodies 
of about 20 to 25 infantry- 
men and 12 to 15 cavalry to 
a gun. Such a force can ma- 
noeuvre comfortably on a front 
of 4 or 5 feet. Most of our 
games have been played with 
about 80 infantry, 50 cavalry, 3 
or 4 naval guns, and a field gun 




r^-^^^ 

^i^;^-^-' 



92 LITTLE WARS 

on either side, or with smaller 
proportional forces. We have 
played excellent games on an 
eighteen-foot battlefield with 
over two hundred men and six 
guns a side. A player may, 
of course, rearrange his forces 
to suit his own convenience; 
brigade all or most of his cav- 
alry into a powerful striking 
force, or what not. But more 
guns proportionally lead to their 
being put out of action too early 
for want of men 5 a larger pro- 
portion of infantry makes the 
game sluggish, and more cav- 
alry — because of the difficulty 




THE RULES 



93 



of keeping large bodies of 
this force under cover — leads 
simply to early heavy losses by 
gun-fire and violent and dis- 
astrous charging. The com- 
position of a force may, of 
course, be varied considerably. 
One good Fight to a Finish 
game we tried as follows: We 
made the Country, tossed for 
choice, and then drew curtains 
across the middle of the field. 
Each player then selected his 
force from the available soldiers 
in this way: he counted in- 
fantry as I each, cavalry as 
iV2y and a gun as lo, and, 




AT One 4.kOVK 
S »-*A« P . . .. 

/U.L OROiNAQY 
TOArFtt . . . 



94 LITTLE WARS 

taking whatever he liked in 
whatever position he liked, he 
made up a total of 150. He 
could, for instance, choose 100 
infantry and 5 guns, or 100 
cavalry and no guns, or 60 in- 
fantry, 40 cavalry, and 3 guns. 
In the result, a Boer-like cav- 
alry force of 80 with 3 guns 
suffered defeat at the hands 
of 1 1 o infantry with 4. 

Size of the Soldiers 

The soldiers used should be 
all of one size. The best Brit- 
ish makers have standardised 
sizes, and sell infantry and cav- 



THE RULES 95 

airy in exactly proportioned di- 
mensions; the infantry being 
nearly two inches tall. There 
is a lighter, cheaper make of 
perhaps an inch and a half high 
that is also available. Foreign- 
made soldiers are of variable 



sizes. 




Section IV 

THE BATTLE OF HOOK'S 
FARM 



^ 



n 

^-f, 



B ^B 



^o'"""""/»r/, 






»<w 






"'""/, 






: Thin covfC^ jj'^^o*"'"""* 







sketch Plan of the Battle of Hook's Farm 



THE BATTLE OF HOOK'S 
FARM 

And now, having given all the 
exact science of our war game, 
having told something of the 
development of this warfare, let 
me here set out the particulars 
of an exemplary game. And 
suddenly your author changes. 
He changes into what perhaps 
he might have been — under dif- 
ferent circumstances. His inky 
fingers become large, manly 
hands, his drooping scholastic 




loo LITTLE WARS 

back stiffens, his elbows go out, 
his etiolated complexion corru- 
gates and darkens, his mous- 
taches increase and grow and 
spread, and curl up horribly; 
a large, red scar, a sabre cut, 
grows lurid over one eye. He 
expands — all over he expands. 
He clears his throat startlingly, 
lugs at the still growing ends 
of his moustache, and says, 
with just a faint and fading 
doubt in his voice as to whether 
he can do it, '^Yas, Sir!" 

Now for a while you listen 
to General H. G. W., of the 
Blue Army. You hear tales of 



BATTLE OF HOOK'S FARM loi 

victory. The photographs of 
the battlefields are by a woman 
war-correspondent, A. C. W.^ a 
daring ornament of her sex. 
I vanish. I vanish, but I will 
return. Here, then, is the 
story of the battle of Hook's 
Farm. 

"The affair of Hook's Farm 
was one of those brisk little 
things that did so much to 
build up my early reputation. 
I did remarkably well, though 
perhaps it is not my function 
to say so. The enemy was 
slightly stronger, both in cav- 
alry and infantry, than my- 





I02 LITTLE WARS 

self;* he had the choice of 
position, and opened the ball. 
Nevertheless I routed him. I 
had with me a compact little 
force of 3 guns, 48 infantry^ 
and 25 horse. My instruc- 
tions were to clear up the 
country to the east of Firely 
Church. 

"We came very speedily 
into touch. I discovered the 
enemy advancing upon Hook's 
Farm and Firely Church, evi- 
dently with the intention of 
holding those two positions and 



* A slight but pardonable error on the part of the gallant 
gentleman. The forces were exactly equal. 



BATTLE OF HOOK'S FARM 103 

giving me a warm welcome. 
I have by me a photograph 
or so of the battlefield and 
also a little sketch I used upon 
the field. They will give the 
intelligent reader a far better 
idea of the encounter than any 
so-called 'fine writing' can do. 
''The original advance of 
the enemy was through the 
open country behind Firely 
Church and Hook's Farm; I 
sighted him between the points 
marked A A and B B, and 
his force was divided into two 
columns, with very little cover 
or possibility of communication 




I04 LITTLE WARS 

between them if once the inter- 
vening ground was under fire. 
I reckoned about 22 to his left 
and 50 or 60 to his right.* 
Evidently he meant to seize 
both Firely Church and Hook's 
Farm, get his guns into action, 
and pound my little force to 
pieces while it was still practi- 
cally in the open. He could 
reach both these admirable po- 
sitions before I could hope to 
get a man there. There was 
no effective cover whatever 
upon my right that would have 



* Here again the gallant gentleman errs ; this time he 
magnifies. 



BATTLE OF HOOK'S FARM 105 

permitted an advance up to the 
church, and so I decided to 
concentrate my whole force in 
a rush upon Hook's Farm, 
while I staved off his left with 
gun fire. I do not believe any 
strategist whatever could have 
bettered that scheme. My 
guns were at the points marked 
D C E, each with five horse- 
men, and I deployed my in- 
fantry in a line between D and 
E. The rest of my cavalry I 
ordered to advance on Hook's 
Farm from C. I have shown 
by arrows on the sketch the 
course I proposed for my guns. 





io6 LITTLE WARS 

The gun E was to go straight 
for its assigned position, and 
get into action at once. C 
was not to risk capture or be- 
ing put out of action ; its exact 
position was to be determined 
by Red's rapidity in getting up 
to the farm, and it was to halt 
and get to work directly it saw 
any chance of effective fire. 

''Red had now sighted us. 
Throughout the affair he showed 
a remarkably poor stomach for 
gun-fire, and this was his undo- 
ing. Moreover, he was tempted 
by the poorness of our cover on 
our right to attempt to outflank 



BATTLE OF HOOK'S FARM 107 

and enfilade us there. Accord- 
ingly, partly to get cover from 
our two central guns and partly 
to outflank us, he sent the 
whole of his left wing to the 
left of Firely Church, where, 
except for the gun, it became 
almost a negligible quantity. 
The gun came out between the 
church and the wood into a 
position from which it did a 
considerable amount of mis- 
chief to the infantry on our 
right, and nearly drove our 
rightmost gun in upon its sup- 
ports. Meanwhile, Red's two 
guns on his right came forward 





io8 LITTLE WARS 

to Hook's Farm, rather badly 
supported by his infantry. 

"Once they got into posi- 
tion there I perceived that we 
should be done for, and ac- 
cordingly I rushed every avail- 
able man forward in a vigorous 
counter attack, and my own 
two guns came lumbering up 
to the farmhouse corners, and 
got into the wedge of shelter 
close behind the house before 
his could open fire. His fire 
met my advance, littering the 
gentle grass slope with dead, 
and then, hot behind the storm 
of shell, and even as my cav- 







ftUfh^t^ 



BATTLE OF HOOK'S FARM 109 

airy gathered to charge his 
guns, he charged mine. I was 
amazed beyond measure at that 
rush, knowing his sabres to be 
slightly outnumbered by mine. 
In another moment all the level 
space round the farmhouse was 
a whirling storm of slashing 
cavalry, and then we found 
ourselves still holding on, with 
half a dozen prisoners, and the 
farmyard a perfect shambles of 
horses and men. The melee was 
over. His charge had failed, 
and, after a brief breathing- 
space for my shot-torn infan- 
try to come up, I led on the 




no 



LITTLE WARS 



counter attack. It was bril- 
liantly successful; a hard five 
minutes with bayonet and sabre, 
and his right gun was in our 
hands and his central one in 
jeopardy. 

<^And now Red was seized 
with that most fatal disease of 
generals, indecision. He would 
neither abandon his lost gun 
nor adequately attack it. He 
sent forward a feeble little in- 
fantry attack, that we cut up 
with the utmost ease, taking 
several prisoners, made a dis- 
astrous demonstration from the 
church, and then fell back al- 




BATTLE OF HOOK'S FARM iii 

together from the gentle hill on 
which Hook Farm is situated 
to a position beside and behind 
an exposed cottage on the level. 
I at once opened out into 
a long crescent, with a gun 
at either horn, whose cross- 
fire completely destroyed his 
chances of retreat from this ill- 
chosen last stand, and there 
presently we disabled his second 
gun. I now turned my atten- 
tion to his still largely un- 
broken right, from which a gun 
had maintained a galling fire 
on us throughout the fight. I 
might still have had some stiff 





112 



LITTLE WARS 



work getting an attack home 
to the church, but Red had 
had enough of it, and now 
decided to relieve me of any 
further exertion by a precipi- 
tate retreat. My gun to the 
right of Hook's Farm killed 
three of his flying men, but 
my cavalry were too badly cut 
up for an effective pursuit, 
and he got away to the ex- 
treme left of his original posi- 
tions with about 6 infantry-men, 
4 cavalry, and i gun. He 
went none too soon. Had he 
stayed, it would have been only 
a question of time before we 




d^ 







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^ 

s 









BATTLE OF HOOKAS FARM 113 

shot him to pieces and finished 
him altogether." 

So far, and a little vain- 
gloriously, the general. Let 
me now shrug my shoulders 
and shake him off, and go over 
this battle he describes a little 
more exactly with the help of 
the photographs. The battle 
is a small, compact game of 
the Fight-to-a-Finish type, and 
it was arranged as simply as 
possible in order to permit of 
a full and exact explanation. 

Figure i shows the country 
of the battlefield put out; on 
the right is the church, on the 





114 



LITTLE WARS 



left (near the centre of the 
plate) is the farm. In the 
hollow between the two is a 
small outbuilding. Directly be- 
hind the farm in the line of 
vision is another outbuilding. 
This is more distinctly seen 
in other photographs. Behind, 
the chalk back line is clear. 
Red has won the toss, both 
for the choice of a side and, 
after making that choice^ for 
first move, and his force is al- 
ready put out upon the back 
line. For the sake of pic- 
turesqueness, the men are not 
put exactly on the line, but 



BATTLE OF HOOK'S FARM 115 

each will have his next move 
measured from that line. Red 
has broken his force into two, 
a fatal error, as we shall see, in 
view of the wide space of open 
ground between the farm and 
the church He has i gun, 5 
cavalry, and 13 infantry on his 
left, who are evidently to take 
up a strong position by the 
church and enfilade Blue's po- 
sition; Red's right, of 2 guns, 
20 cavalry, and 37 infantry, aim 
at the seizure of the farm. 

Figure 2 is a near view of 
Blue's side, with his force put 
down. He has grasped the 



H^C*> 





ii6 LITTLE WARS 

Strategic mistake of Red, and 
is going to fling every man 
at the farm. His right, of 5 
cavalry and 1 6 infantry, will get 
up as soon as possible to the 
woods near the centre of the 
field (whence the fire of their 
gun will be able to cut oflT the 
two portions of Red's force 
from each other), and then, 
leaving the gun there with suffi- 
cient men to serve it, the rest 
of this party will push on to 
co-operate with the main force 
of their comrades in the inevi- 
table scrimmage for the farm. 
Figure 3 shows the fight 




>. 









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'5 

3Q 



1> 

1 



BATTLE OF HOOK'S FARM 117 

after Red and Blue have both 
made their first move. It is 
taken from Red's side. Red 
has not as yet realised the 
danger of his position. His left 
gun struggles into position to 
the left of the churchy his 
centre and right push for the 
farm. Blue's five cavalry on 
his left have already galloped 
forward into a favourable po- 
sition to open fire at the next 
move — they are a little hidden 
in the picture by the church; 
the sixteen infantry follow hard, 
and his main force makes 
straight for the farm. 




ii8 LITTLE WARS 

Figure 4 shows the affair 
developing rapidly. Red's cav- 
alry on his right have taken 
his two guns well forward into 
a position to sweep either side 
of the farm, and his left gun 
is now well placed to pound 
Blue's infantry centre. His in- 
fantry continue to press for- 
ward, but Blue, for his second 
move, has already opened fire 
from the woods with his right 
gun, and killed three of Red's 
men. His infantry have now 
come up to serve this gun^ and 
the cavalry who brought it 
into position at the first move 




-^ 



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•x 






BATTLE OF HOOK'S FARM 119 

have now left it to them in 
order to gallop over to join 
the force attacking the farm. 
Undismayed by Red's guns, 
Blue has brought his other two 
guns and his men as close to 
the farm as they can go. His 
leftmost gun stares Red's in 
the face, and prevents any ef- 
fective fire, his middle gun 
faces Red's middle gun. Some 
of his cavalry are exposed to 
the right of the farm, but most 
are completely covered now by 
the farm from Red's fire. Red 
has now to move. The nature 
of his position is becoming ap- 



I20 LITTLE WARS 

parent to him. His right gun 
is ineffective, his left and his 
centre guns cannot kill more 
than seven or eight men be- 
tween them; and at the next 
move, unless he can silence 
them. Blue's guns will be mow- 
ing his exposed cavalry down 
from the security of the farm. 
He is in a fix. How is he to 
get out of it? His cavalry are 
slightly outnumbered, but he 
decides to do as much execu- 
tion as he can with his own 
guns, charge the Blue guns be- 
fore him, and then bring up his 
infantry to save the situation. 



BATTLE OF HOOK'S FARM 121 



Figure ^a shows the result 
of Red's move. His two effec- 
tive guns have between them 
bowled over two cavalry and 
six infantry in the gap between 
the farm and Blue's right gun; 
and then, following up the ef- 
fect of his gunfire^ his cavalry 
charges home over the Blue 
guns. One oversight he makes, 
to which Blue at once calls his 
attention at the end of his 
move. Red has reckoned on 
twenty cavalry for his charge, 
forgetting that by the rules he 
must put two men at the tail 
of his middle gun. His infan- 




r w -■'' 



122 LITTLE WARS 

try are just not able to come 
up for this duty, and conse- 
quently two cavalry-men have 
to be set there. The game 
then pauses while the players 
work out the cavalry melee. 
Red has brought up eighteen 
men to this 5 in touch or within 
six inches of touch there are 
twenty-one Blue cavalry. Red's 
force is isolated, for only two 
of his men are within a move, 
and to support eighteen he 
would have to have nine. By 
the rules this gives fifteen men 
dead on either side and three 
Red prisoners to Blue. By the 





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c 



BATTLE OF HOOK'S FARM 123 

rules also it rests with Red to 
indicate the survivors within 
the limits of the milee as he 
chooses. He takes very good 
care there are not four men 
within six inches of either Blue 
gun, and both these are out 
of action therefore for Blue's 
next move. Of course Red 
would have done far better 
to have charged home with thir- 
teen men only, leaving seven in 
support, but he was flurried by 
his comparatively unsuccessful 
shooting — he had wanted to 
hit more cavalry — and by the 
gun-trail mistake. Moreover, 



JiiJ^LdA^ 




2C3=^^' 



124 LITTLE WARS 

he had counted his antagonist 
wrongly, and thought he could 
arrange a melee of twenty against 
twenty. 

Figure ^b shows the game 
at the same stage as 5^, imme- 
diately after the adjudication of 
the melee. The dead have been 
picked up, the three prisoners, 
by a slight deflection of the 
rules in the direction of the 
picturesque, turn their faces 
towards captivity, and the rest 
of the picture is exactly in the 
position of 5^. 

It is now Blue's turn to 
move, and figure 6a shows the 



BATTLE OF HOOK'S FARM 125 

result of his move. He fires 
his rightmost gun (the nose of 
it is just visible to the right) 
and kills one infantry-man and 
one cavalry-man (at the tail of 
Red's central gun), brings up 
his surviving eight cavalry into 
convenient positions for the ser- 
vice of his temporarily silenced 
guns, and hurries his infantry 
forward to the farm, recklessly 
exposing them in the thin wood 
between the farm and his right 
gun. The attentive reader will 
be able to trace all this in figure 
6^, and he will also note the 
three Red cavalry prisoners go- 




126 LITTLE WARS 

ing to the rear under the escort 
of one Khaki infantry-man. 

Figure 6h shows exactly the 
same stage as figure 6^, that is 
to say, the end of Blue's third 
move. A cavalry-man lies dead 
at the tail of Red's middle gun, 
an infantry-man a little behind 
it. His rightmost gun is aban- 
doned and partly masked, but 
not hidden, from the observer, 
by a tree to the side of the 
farmhouse. 

And now, what is Red 
to do? 

The reader will probably 
have his own ideas, as I have 





>3 



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oq 



5^ 









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-5i 



BATTLE OF HOOK'S FARM 127 

mine. What Red did do in 
the actual game was to lose his 
head, and when at the end of 
four minutes' deliberation he 
had to move, he blundered des- 
perately. He opened fire on 
Blue's exposed centre and killed 
eight men. (Their bodies litter 
the ground in figure 7, which 
gives a complete bird's-eye view 
of the battle.) He then sent 
forward and isolated six or seven 
men in a wild attempt to re- 
capture his lost gun, massed 
his other men behind the in- 
adequate cover of his central 
gun, and sent the detachment 




■y-x 



128 LITTLE WARS 

of infantry that had hitherto 
lurked uselessly behind the 
church, in a frantic and hope- 
less rush across the open to 
join them. (The one surviv- 
ing cavalry-man on his right 
wing will be seen taking refuge 
behind the cottage.) There 
can be little question of the 
entire unsoundness of all these 
movements. Red was at a dis- 
advantage, he had failed to cap- 
ture the farm, and his business 
now was manifestly to save his 
men as much as possible, make 
a defensive fight of it, inflict as 
much damage as possible with 



BATTLE OF HOOK'S FARM 129 

his leftmost gun on Blue's ad- 
vance, get the remnants of his 
right across to the church, — 
the cottage in the centre and 
their own gun would have 
given them a certain amount 
of cover, — and build up a new 
position about that building as 
a pivot. With two guns right 
and left of the church he might 
conceivably have saved the rest 
of the fight. 

That, however, is theory; 
let us return to fact. Figure 
8 gives the disastrous conse- 
quences of Red's last move. 
Blue has moved, his guns 





I30 LITTLE WARS 

have slaughtered ten of Red's 
wretched foot, and a rush of 
nine Blue cavalry and infantry 
mingles with Red's six surviv- 
ing infantry about the disputed 
gun. These infantry by the 
definition are isolated'^ there are 
not three other Reds within 
a move of them. The view 
in this photograph also is an 
extensive one, and the reader 
will note, as a painful ac- 
cessory, the sad spectacle of 
three Red prisoners receding 
to the right. The melee about 
Red's lost gun works out, 
of course, at three dead on 




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St 






a; 



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BATTLE OF HOOK'S FARM 131 

each side, and three more Red 
prisoners. 

Henceforth the battle moves 
swiftly to complete the disaster 
of Red. Shaken and demoral- 
ised, that unfortunate general is 
now only for retreat. His next 
move, of which I have no pic- 
ture, is to retreat the infantry he 
has so wantonly exposed back 
to the shelter of the church, to 
withdraw the wreckage of his 
right into the cover of the 
cottage, and — one last gleam 
of enterprise — to throw for- 
ward his left gun into a posi- 
tion commanding Blue's right. 




132 LITTLE WARS 

Blue then pounds Red's 
right with his gun to the right 
of the farm and kills three 
men. He extends his other 
gun to the left of the farm, 
right out among the trees, so 
as to get an effective fire next 
time upon the tail of Red's 
gun. He also moves up suffi- 
cient men to take possession 
of Red's lost gun. On the 
right Blue's gun engages Red's 
and kills one man. All this the 
reader will see clearly in figure 
9, and he will also note a second 
batch of Red prisoners — this 
time they are infantry, going 











^ 









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Vi 



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^ 



BATTLE OF HOOK'S FARM 133 

rearward. Figure 9 is the last 
picture that is needed to tell 
the story of the battle. Red's 
position is altogether hopeless. 
He has four men left alive by 
his rightmost gun, and their 
only chance is to attempt to 
save that by retreating with it. 
If they fire it, one or other will 
certainly be killed at its tail in 
Blue's subsequent move, and 
then the gun will be neither 
movable nor fireable. Red's 
left gun, with four men only, 
is also in extreme peril, and will 
be immovable and helpless if 
it loses another man. 





134 LITTLE WARS 

Very properly Red decided 
upon retreat. His second gun 
had to be abandoned after one 
move, but two of the men with 
it escaped over his back line. 
Five of the infantry behind the 
church escaped^ and his third 
gun and its four cavalry got 
away on the extreme left-hand 
corner of Red's position. Blue 
remained on the field, com- 
pletely victorious, with two cap- 
tured guns and six prisoners. 

There you have a scientific 
record of the worthy general's 
little affair. 




Section V 

EXTENSIONS AND AMPLIFI- 
CATIONS OF LITTLE WAR 



EXTENSIONS AND AMPLIFI- 
CATIONS OF LITTLE WAR 

Now that battle of Hook's 
Farm is, as I have explained, 
a simphfication of the game, 
entirely for the purpose of il- 
lustrating the method of play- 
ing; there is scarcely a battle 
that will not prove more elabo- 
rate (and eventful) than this 
little encounter. Obviously, if 
a number of players and a suffi- 
ciently large room can be got, 
there is no reason why armies 
of many hundreds of soldiers 






138 



LITTLE WARS 



should not fight over many 
square yards of model country. 
So long as each player has 
about a hundred men and 
three guns there is no need to 
lengthen the duration of a 
game on that account. But 
it is too laborious and con- 
fusing for a single player to 
handle more than that number 
of men. 

Moreover, on a big floor 
with an extensive country it 
is possible to begin moving 
with moves double or treble 
the length here specified, and 
to come down to moves of 



AMPLIFICATIONS 139 

the ordinary lengths when the 
troops are within fifteen or 
twelve or ten feet of each 
other. To players with the 
time and space available I 
would suggest using a quite 
large country, beginning with 
treble moves, and, with the 
exception of a select number 
of cavalry scouts^ keeping the 
soldiers in their boxes with the 
lids orij and moving the boxes 
as units. (This boxing idea 
is a new one, and affords a 
very good substitute for the 
curtain; I have tried it twice 
for games in the open air where 




I40 LITTLE WARS 

the curtain was not available.) 
Neither side would, of course, 
know what the other had in its 
boxes; they might be packed 
regiments or a mere skeleton 
force. Each side would ad- 
vance on the other by double 
or treble moves behind a screen 
of cavalry scouts, until a scout 
was within fifteen feet of a box 
on the opposite side. Then 
the contents of that particular 
box would have to be dis- 
closed and the men stood out. 
Troops without any enemy 
within twenty-five feet could 
be returned to their boxes for 



AMPLIFICATIONS 141 

facility in moving. Playing on 
such a scale would admit also 
of the introduction of the prob- 
lem of provisions and supplies. 
Little Toy Army Service wag- 
gons can be bought, and it 
could be ruled that troops must 
have one such waggon for every 
fifty men within at least six 
moves. Moreover, ammuni- 
tion carts may be got, and it 
may be ruled that one must 
be within two moves of a gun 
before the latter can be fired. 
All these are complications of 
the War Game, and so far I 
have not been able to get 




142 LITTLE WARS 

together sufficient experienced 
players to play on this larger, 
more elaborate scale. It is 
only after the smaller simpler 
war game here described has 
been played a number of 
times, and its little dodges mas- 
tered completely, that such 
more warlike devices become 
practicable. 

But obviously with a team 
of players and an extensive 
country, one could have a gen- 
eral controlling the whole cam- 
paign, divisional commanders, 
batteries of guns, specialised 
brigades, and a quite military 




AMPLIFICATIONS 143 

movement of the whole affair. 
I have (as several illustrations 
show) tried Little Wars in the 
open air. The toy soldiers 
stand quite well on closely 
mown grass, but the long-range 
gun-fire becomes a little un- 
certain if there is any breeze. 
It gives a greater freedom of 
movement to increase, and even 
double, the moves of the in- 
door game. One can mark out 
high roads and streams with an 
ordinary lawn-tennis marker, 
mountains and rocks of stones, 
and woods and forests of twigs 
are easily arranged. But if the 




144 LITTLE WARS 

game is to be left out all night 
and continued next day (a 
thing I have as yet had no 
time to try), the houses must 
be of some more solid mate- 
rial than paper. I would sug- 
gest painted blocks of wood. 
On a large lawn, a wide 
country-side may be easily rep- 
resented. The players may 
begin with a game exactly like 
the ordinary Krieg-spiel, with 
scouts and boxed soldiers, 
which will develop into battles 
as they are here set out^ as the 
troops come into contact. It 
would be obviously easy to 



AMPLIFICATIONS 145 

give the roads a real signifi- 
cance by permitting a move 
half as long again as in the 
open country for waggons or 
boxed troops along a road. 
There is a possibility of hav- 
ing a toy railway, with stations 
or rolling stock into which 
troops might be put, on such 
a giant war map. One would 
allow a move for entraining 
and another for detraining, re- 
quiring the troops to be massed 
alongside the train at the be- 
ginning and end of each jour- 
ney, and the train might move 
at four or five times the cavalry 




146 



LITTLE WARS 



rate. One would use open 
trucks and put in a specified 
number of men — say twelve 
infantry or five cavalry or half 
a gun per truck — and permit 
an engine to draw seven or 
eight trucks, or move at a re- 
duced speed with more. One 
could also rule that four men 
— the same four men — re- 
maining on a line during two 
moves, could tear up a rail, 
and eight men in three moves 
replace it. 

I will confess I have never 
yet tried over these more elab- 
orate developments of Little 




AMPLIFICATIONS 147 

Wars, partly because of the 
limited time at my disposal, 
and partly because they all de- 
mand a number of players on 
each side who are well ac- 
quainted with the game if they 
are not to last interminably. 
The Battle of Hook's Farm 
(one player a side) took a 
long afternoon, and most of 
my battles have lasted the 
better part of a day. 




Section VI 

ENDING WITH A SORT OF 
CHALLENGE 



ENDING WITH A SORT OF 
CHALLENGE 



I COULD go on now and tell 
of battles, copiously. In the 
memory of one skirmish I have 
given I do but taste blood. I 
would like to go on, to a 
large, thick book. It would 
be an agreeable task. Since 
I am the chief inventor and 
practiser (so far) of Little 
Wars, there has fallen to me 
a disproportionate share of vic- 
tories. But let me not boast. 
For the present, I have done 




i^^M. 




152 LITTLE WARS 

all that I meant to do in this 
matter. It is for you, dear 
reader, now to get a floor, a 
friend, some soldiers and some 
guns, and show by a grovelling 
devotion your appreciation of 
this noble and beautiful gift of 
a limitless game that I have 
given you. 

And if I might for a mo- 
ment trumpet! How much 
better is this amiable miniature 
than the Real Thing! Here is 
a homeopathic remedy for the 
imaginative strategist. Here is 
the premeditation, the thrill, the 
strain of accumulating victory 



A SORT OF CHALLENGE 153 

or disaster — and no smashed 
nor sanguinary bodies, no shat- 
tered fine buildings nor devas- 
tated country sides, no petty 
cruelties, none of that awful 
universal boredom and em- 
bitterment, that tiresome delay 
or stoppage or embarrassment 
of every gracious, bold, sweet, 
and charming thing, that we 
who are old enough to remem- 
ber a real modern war know to 
be the reality of belligerence. 
This world is for ample living; 
we want security and freedom; 
all of us in every country, ex- 
cept a few dull-witted, ener- 



154 LITTLE WARS 

getic bores, want to see the 
manhood of the world at some- 
thing better than aping the 
little lead toys our children 
buy in boxes. We want fine 
things made for mankind — 
splendid cities, open ways, more 
knowledge and power, and 
more and more and more, — 
and so I offer my game, for a 
particular as well as a general 
end 5 and let us put this pranc- 
ing monarch and that silly scare- 
monger, and these excitable 
" patriots," and those adven- 
turers, and all the practitioners 
of Welt Politik^ into one vast 




;^^^GX 




A SORT OF CHALLENGE 155 

Temple of War, with cork car- 
pets everywhere, and plenty of 
little trees and little houses to 
knock down, and cities and 
fortresses, and unlimited sol- 
diers — tons, cellars-full^ — and 
let them lead their own lives 
there away from us. 

My game is just as good as 
their game, and saner by rea- 
son of its size. Here is War, 
done down to rational propor- 
tions, and yet out of the 
way of mankind, even as our 
fathers turned human sacrifices 
into the eating of little images 
and symbolic mouthfuls. For 



'^v§i?r 





156 LITTLE WARS 

my own part, I am prepared, 
I have nearly five hundred 
men, more than a score of 
guns, and I twirl my mous- 
tache and hurl defiance east- 
ward from my home in Essex 
across the narrow seas. Not 
only eastward. I would con- 
clude this little discourse with 
one other disconcerting and 
exasperating sentence for the 
admirers and practitioners of 
Big War. I have never yet 
met in little battle any military 
gentleman, any captain, major, 
colonel, general, or eminent 
commander, who did not pres- 



A SORT OF CHALLENGE 157 

ently get into difficulties and 
confusions among even the 
elementary rules of the battle. 
You have only to play at 
Little Wars three or four times 
to realise just what a blunder- 
ing thing Great War must be. 

Great War is at present, I 
am convinced, not only the 
most expensive game in the 
universe, but it is a game out 
of all proportion. Not only 
are the masses of men and 
material and suffering and in- 
convenience too monstrously 
big for reason, but — the avail- 
able heads we have for it, are 




i '.•• 

//^7-l.V-. 








158 LITTLE WARS 

too small. That^ I think, is 
the most pacific realisation con- 
ceivable, and Little War brings 
you to it as nothing else but 
Great War can do. 



i^M. 




APPENDIX 



APPENDIX 

LITTLE WARS AND KRIEGSPIEL 

This little book has, I hope, been perfectly 
frank about its intentions. It is not a book 
upon Kriegspiel. It gives merely a game that 
may be played by two or four or six amateur- 
ish persons in an afternoon and evening with 
toy soldiers. But it has a very distinct rela- 
tion to Kriegspiel ; and since the main portion 
of it was written and published in a magazine, 
I have had quite a considerable correspond- 
ence with military people who have been in- 
terested by it, and who have shown a very 
friendly spirit towards it — in spite of the 
pacific outbreak in its concluding section. 
They tell me — what I already a little sus- 
pected — that Kriegspiel, as it is played by the 
British Army, is a very dull and unsatisfactory 
exercise, lacking in realism, in stir and the 



i62 APPENDIX 

unexpected, obsessed by the umpire at every 
turn, and of very doubtful value in waking 
up the imagination, which should be its chief 
function. I am particularly indebted to Colo- 
nel Mark Sykes for advice and information in 
this matter. He has pointed out to me the 
possibility of developing Little Wars into a 
vivid and inspiring Kriegspiel, in which the 
element of the umpire would be reduced to a 
minimum; and it would be ungrateful to him, 
and a waste of an interesting opportunity, if I 
did not add this Appendix, pointing out how 
a Kriegspiel of real educational value for junior 
officers may be developed out of the amusing 
methods of Little War. If Great War is to 
be played at all, the better it is played the 
more humanely it will be done. I see no in- 
consistency in deploring the practice while 
perfecting the method. But I am a civilian, 
and Kriegspiel is not my proper business. I 
am deeply preoccupied with a novel I am writ- 
ing, and so I think the best thing I can do is 
just to set down here all the ideas that have 
cropped up in my mind, in the footsteps, so to 



APPENDIX 163 

speak, of Colonel Sykes, and leave it to the 
military expert, if he cares to take the matter 
up, to reduce my scattered suggestions to a 
system. 

Now, first, it is manifest that in Little Wars 
there is no equivalent for rifle-fire, and that the 
effect of the gun-fire has no resemblance to 
the effect of shell. That may be altered very 
simply. Let the rules as to gun-fire be as 
they are now, but let a different projectile be 
used — a projectile that will drop down and 
stay where it falls. I find that one can buy in 
ironmongers' shops small brass screws of vari- 
ous sizes and weights, but all capable of being 
put in the muzzle of the 4*7 guns without 
slipping down the barrel. If, with such a 
screw in the muzzle, the gun is loaded and 
fired, the wooden bolt remains in the gun and 
the screw flies and drops and stays near where 
it falls — its range being determined by the 
size and weight of screw selected by the 
gunner. Let us assume this is a shell, and it 
is quite easy to make a rule that will give the 
effect of its explosion. Half, or, in the case 



1 64 APPENDIX 

of an odd number, one more than half, of the 
men within three inches of this shell are dead, 
and if there is a gun completely within the 
circle of three inches radius from the shell 
it is destroyed. If it is not completely within 
the circle it is disabled for two moves. A 
supply wagon is completely destroyed if it falls 
wholly or partially within the radius. But if 
there is a wall, house, or entrenchment between 
any men and the shell they are uninjured — 
they do not count in the reckoning of the 
effect of the shell. 

I think one can get a practical imitation of 
the effect of rifle-fire by deciding that for 
every five infantry men who are roughly in 
a line, and who do not move in any particular 
move, there may be one (ordinary) shot taken 
with a 4*7 gun. It may be fired from any 
convenient position behind the row of five 
men, so long as the shot passes roughly over 
the head of the middle man of the five. 

Of course, while in Little Wars there are 
only three or four players, in any proper 
Kriegspiel the game will go on over a larger 



APPENDIX 165 

area — in a drill-hall or some such place — 
and each arm and service will be entrusted to 
a particular player. This permits all sorts of 
complicated imitations of reality that are im- 
possible to our parlour and playroom Little 
Wars. We can consider transport, supply, 
ammunition, and the moral effect of cavalry 
impact, and of uphill and downhill move- 
ments. We can also bring in the spade and 
entrenchment, and give scope to the Royal 
Engineers. But before I write anything of 
Colonel Sykes' suggestions about these, let 
me say a word or two about Kriegspiel 
" country." 

The country for Kriegspiel should be made 
up, I think, of heavy blocks or boxes of wood 
about 3x3x5^ feet, and curved pieces (with 
a rounded outline and a chord of three feet, or 
shaped like right-angled triangles with an in- 
curved hypotenuse and two straight sides of 
3 feet) can easily be contrived to round off" 
corners and salient angles. These blocks can 
be bored to take trees, etc., exactly as the 
boards in Little Wars are bored, and with 



1 66 APPENDIX 

them a very passable model of any particu- 
lar country can be built up from a contoured 
ordnance map. Houses may be made very 
cheaply by shaping a long piece of wood into 
a house-like section and sawing it up. There 
will always be someone who will touch up and 
paint and stick windows on to and generally 
adorn and individualise such houses, which 
are, of course, the stabler the heavier the wood 
used. The rest of the country as in Little 
Wars. 

Upon such a country a Kriegspiel could be 
played with rules upon the lines of the follow- 
ing sketch rules, which are the result of a dis- 
cussion between Colonel Sykes and myself, and 
in which most of the new ideas are to be 
ascribed to Colonel Sykes. We proffer them, 
not as a finished set of rules, but as material 
for anyone who chooses to work over them, 
in the elaboration of what we believe will be 
a far more exciting and edifying Kriegspiel 
than any that exists at the present time. The 
game may be played by any number of play- 
ers, according to the forces engaged and the 



APPENDIX 167 

size of the country available. Each side will 
be under the supreme command of a General, 
who will be represented by a cavalry soldier. 
The player who is General must stand at or 
behind his representative image and within six 
feet of it. His signalling will be supposed to 
be perfect, and he will communicate with his 
subordinates by shout, whisper, or note, as he 
thinks fit. I suggest he should be considered 
invulnerable, but Colonel Sykes has proposed 
arrangements for his disablement. He would 
have it that if the General falls within the 
zone of destruction of a shell he must go out 
of the room for three moves (injured) and that 
if he is hit by rifle-fire or captured he shall 
quit the game, and be succeeded by his next 
subordinate. 

Now as to the Moves. 

It is suggested that: 

Infantry shall move one foot. 
Cavalry shall move three feet. 

The above moves are increased by 



i68 APPENDIX 

one half for troops in twos or 
fours on a road. 

Royal Engineers shall move two feet. 

Royal Artillery shall move two feet. 

Transport and Supply shall move one 
foot on roads, half foot across 
country. 

The General shall move six feet (per 
motor), three feet across country. 

Boats shall move one foot. 

In moving uphill, one contour counts 
as one foot ; downhill, two contours 
count as one foot. Where there are 
four contours to one foot vertical 
the hill is impassable for wheels un- 
less there is a road. 

Infantry. 

To pass a fordable river = one move. 

To change from fours to two ranks := 
half a move. 

To change from two ranks to exten- 
sion = half a move. 

To embark into boats = two moves 



APPENDIX 169 

for every twenty men embarked at 
any point. 
To disembark = one move for every 
twenty men. 

Cavalry. 

To pass a fordable river = one move. 

To change formation = half a move. 
To mount = one move. To dis- 
mount = one move. 

Artillery. 

To unlimber guns = half a move. 
To limber up guns = half a move. 
Rivers are impassable to guns. 
Neither Infantry, Cavalry, nor Ar- 
tillery CAN Fire and Move in One 
Move. 

Royal Engineers. 

No repairs can be commenced, no de- 
structions can be begun, during a 
move in which R. E. have changed 
position. 

Rivers impassable. 



170 APPENDIX 

Transport and Supply. 

No supplies or stores can be delivered 
during a move if T. and S. have 
moved. 
Rivers impassable. 

Next as to Supply in the Field: 

All troops must be kept supplied with 
food, ammunition, and forage. The 
players must give up, every six 
moves, one packet of food per 
thirty men; one packet of forage 
per six horses; one packet of am- 
munition per thirty infantry which 
fire for six consecutive moves. 
These supplies, at the time when they 
are given up, must be within six 
feet of the infantry they belong to 
and eighteen feet of the cavalry. 
Isolated bodies of less than thirty infan- 
try require no supplies — a body is 
isolated if it is more than twelve 
feet off another body. In calculat- 
ing supplies for infantry the frac- 



APPENDIX 171 

tions either count as thirty if fifteen 
or over, or as nothing if less than 
fifteen. Thus forty-six infantry re- 
quire two packets of food or ammu- 
nition; forty-four infantry require 
one packet of food. 

N. B. — Supplies are not effective if 
enemy is between supplies and troops 
they belong to. 

Men surrounded and besieged must be 
victualled at the following rate: — 

One packet food for every thirty men 
for every six moves. 

One packet forage every six horses for 
every six moves. 

In the event of supplies failing, horses 
may take the place of food, but not 
of course of forage ; one horse to 
equal one packet. 

In the event of supplies failing, the 
following consequences ensue: — 

Infantry without ammunition cannot 
fire (guns are supposed to have un- 
limited ammunition with them). 



172 APPENDIX 

Infantry, cavalry, R.A., and R.E. can- 
not move w^ithout supply — if sup- 
plies are not provided vs^ithin six 
consecutive moves they are out of 
action. 

A force surrounded must surrender four 
moves after eating its last horse. 

Now as to Destructions : 

To destroy a railway bridge R.E. take 

two moves; to repair, R.E. take 

ten moves. 
To destroy a railway culvert R.E. take 

one move; to repair, R.E. take five 

moves. 
To destroy a river road bridge R.E. 

take one move; to repair, R.E. take 

five moves. 
A supply depot can be destroyed by 

one man in two moves, no matter 

how large (by fire). 
Four men can destroy the contents of 

six wagons in one move. 
A contact mine can be placed on a road 



APPENDIX 173 

or in any place by two men in six 
moves; it will be exploded by the 
first pieces passing over it, and will 
destroy everything within six inches 
radius.* 

Next as to Constructions: 

Entrenchments can be made by infan- 
try in four moves.* They are to 
be strips of wood two inches high 
tacked to the country, or wooden 
bricks two inches high. Two men 
may make an inch of entrenchment. 

Epaulments for guns may be con- 
structed at the rate of six men to 
one epaulment in four moves.* 

Rules as to Cavalry Charging: 

No body of less than eight cavalry may 

* Notice to be given to umpire of commencement of 
any work or the placing of a mine. In event of no umpire 
being available, a folded note must be put on the mantel- 
piece when entrenchment is commenced, and opponent 
asked to open it when the trench is completed or the mine 
exploded. 



174 APPENDIX 

charge, and they must charge in 
proper formation. 

If cavalry charges infantry in extended 
order: — 

If the charge starts at a distance of more 
than two feet the cavalry loses one 
man for every five infantry men 
charged, and the infantry loses one 
man for each sabre charging. 

At less than two feet and more than 
one foot the cavalry loses one man 
for every ten charged, and the in- 
fantry two men for each sabre 
charging. 

At less than one foot the cavalry loses 
one man for every fifteen charged, 
and the infantry three men for each 
sabre charging. 

If cavalry charges infantry in close 
order the result is reversed. 

Thus at more than two feet one infan- 
try man kills three cavalry men, and 
fifteen cavalry men one infantry 
man. 



APPENDIX 175 

At more than one foot one infantry 
man kills two cavalry, and ten cav- 
alry one infantry. 

At less than one foot one infantry man 
kills one cavalry, and live cavalry 
one infantry. 

However, infantry that have been 
charged in close order are immo- 
bile for the subsequent move. 

Infantry charged in extended order 
must on the next move retire one 
foot ; they can be charged again. 

If cavalry charges cavalry : — 

If cavalry is within charging distance 
of the enemy's cavalry at the end of 
the enemy's move it must do one of 
three things — dismount, charge, 
or retire. If it remains stationary 
and mounted and the enemy charges, 
one charging sabre will kill five 
stationary sabres and put fifteen 
others three feet to the rear. 

Dismounted cavalry charged is equiva- 
lent to infantry in extended order. 



1 

175 APPENDIX 

If cavalrv charges cavaln* and the num- 
bers are equal and the ground level, 
the result must be decided bv the 
toss ot a coin : the loser losing 
three-quarters of his men and 
obliged to retire, the winner los- 
ing one-quarter of his men. 

If the numbers are unequal, the nulee 
rules for Little Wars obtain if the 
ground is level. 

If the ground slopes, the cavaln^ 
charging downhill will be multi- 
plied according to the number oi 
contours crossed. If it is one 
contour it must be multiplied bv 
two ; tsvo contours multiplied bv 
three ; three contours multiplied 
by four. 

If cavaln^ retires before cavalrv instead 
of accepting a charge, it must con- 
tinue to retire so long as it is 
pursued — the pursuers can only be 
arrested by fresh cavalr^* or by in- 
fantry or artillery fire. 



APPENDIX 177 

If driven off the field or into an unford- 
able river, the retreating body is 
destroyed. 

If infantry find hostile cavalry within 
charging distance at the end of the 
enemy's move, and this infantry re- 
tires and yet is still within charging 
distance, it will receive double losses 
if in extended order if charged; and 
if in two ranks or in fours, will lose 
at three feet two men for each 
charging sabre; at two feet three 
men for each charging sabre. The 
cavalry in these circumstances will 
lose nothing. The infantry will 
have to continue to retire until 
their tormentors have exterminated 
them or been driven off by some- 
one else. 

If cavalry charges artillery and is not 
dealt with by other forces, one gun 
is captured with a loss to the cav- 
alry of four men per gun for a 
charge at three feet, three men at 



178 APPENDIX 

two feet, and one man at one 
foot. 
If artillery retires before cavalry when 
cavalry is within charging distance, 
it must continue to retire so long 
as the cavalry pursues. 

The introduction of toy railway trains, 
moving, let us say, eight feet per move, upon 
toy rails, needs rules as to entraining and 
detraining and so forth, that will be quite 
easily worked out upon the model of boat 
embarkation here given. An engine or truck 
within the circle of destruction of a shell will 
be of course destroyed. 

The toy soldiers used in this Kriegspiel 
should not be the large soldiers used in Little 
Wars. The British manufacturers who turn 
out these also make a smaller, cheaper type 
of man — the infantry about an inch high 
— which is better adapted to Kriegspiel 
purposes. 

We hope, if these suggestions " catch on,** 
to induce them to manufacture a type of 



APPENDIX 179 

soldier more exactly suited to the needs of the 
game, including tray carriers for troops in for- 
mation and (what is at present not attainable) 
dismountable cavalry that will stand. 

We place this rough sketch of a Kriegspiel 
entirely at the disposal of any military men 
whose needs and opportunities enable them to 
work it out and make it into an exacter and 
more realistic game. In doing so, we think 
they will find it advisable to do their utmost 
to 7Jiake the game work itself, and to keep the 
need for umpire's decisions at a minimum. 
Whenever possible, death should be by actual 
gun- and rifle-fire and not by computation. 
Things should happen, and not be decided. 
We would also like to insist upon the absolute 
need of an official upon either side, simply to 
watch and measure the moves taken, and to 
collect and check the amounts of supply and 
ammunition given up. This is a game like 
real war, played against time, and played under 
circumstances of considerable excitement, and 
it is remarkable how elastic the measure- 



NOV 26 1913 



1 80 APPENDIX 

ments of quite honest and honourable men 
can become. 

We believe that the nearer that Kriegspiel 
approaches to an actual small model of war, 
not only in its appearance but in its emotional 
and intellectual tests, the better it will serve its 
purpose of trial and education. 

H. G. W. 






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